Rachel McAdams In Talks To Replace Reese Witherspoon In Sci-Fi Love Story Passengers

In a few weeks, audiences can watch Rachel McAdams on the stationary end of a relationship steeped in time travel in Richard Curtis’ About Time. And now there’s a good chance we’ll get to see the actress take on another love story with a sci-fi twist, as she is currently in talks to join a space bound Keanu Reeves in The Weinstein Company’s Passengers.

Should she join the film, McAdams will be taking the place of Reese Witherspoon, who was an integral part of getting the film sold to begin with during this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, the upcoming production will take place in Germany, and Witherspoon had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts, according to Deadline. While Witherspoon is the more accomplished actress in this situation, I actually enjoy McAdams’ performances more on the whole. Plus, anyone starring in a film opposite Reeves is going to be carrying a good chunk of the film’s emotional weight, which I’m sure she’s capable of doing in spades.

Set to be directed by Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones) from a script written by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), Passengers will take place aboard a huge spacecraft transporting thousands of citizens to a distant planet in the early stages of colonization. Due to a malfunction in one of the ship’s sleep chambers, one lone passenger (Reeves) wakes up 90 years before he is supposed to. With nothing else on his hands but time and the potential to die alone, he decides to wake up another passenger (McAdams, presumably) and embarks upon an otherworldly love story.

Two actors virtually alone in the vastness of space? It’s obvious this movie isn’t going to be anything like Alfonso Cuaron’s CGI-heavy epic Gravity, but it’s got enough of the base elements to almost guarantee a modest box office showing... assuming Spaihts’ script concerns itself with characters smarter than those in his Prometheus script that was ultimately rewritten by Damon Lindelof.

McAdams remains constantly busy, with Brian De Palma’s thriller Passion also expected to hit theaters this year. She’s currently filming the untitled Cameron Crowe magical rom-com, as well as Wim Winders troubling drama Every Thing Will Be Fine. She’s also voicing a role in Mark Osborne’s upcoming adaptation of the classic children’s novel The Little Prince, and stars opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in Anton Corbijn’s thriller A Most Wanted Man, which is expected to come out next year.

Passengers is planning on a late 2014 release, but in the meantime, take a look at the trailer for About Time.